None
of
your
coins
are
money
and
you
all
have
brain
damage.
“Money”
is
a
sloppy
word,
but
generally
it’s
used
to
refer
to
things
that
are
a
general
unit
of
account
(like
the
U.S.
dollar)
and/or
a
generally
accepted
medium
of
exchange
(like
a
bank
deposit).
Ethan
Buchman
is
a
co-founder
of
Cosmos,
the
CEO
of
Informal
Systems
and
creator
of
Cycles.
Money
almost
never
means
something
that’s
just
a
strong
store
of
value,
or
that
is
expected
to
go
up
in
value
generally
over
time.
Of
course,
storing
value
is
an
important
function
of
money,
but
it’s
the
only
of
the
three
functions
that
is
more
widely
shared
with
other
things.
There’s
way
more
things
that
function
as
a
“store
of
value”
than
things
that
function
as
a
“generally
accepted
unit
of
account”
or
a
“generally
accepted
medium
of
exchange.”
That
makes
being
a
unit
of
account
or
medium
of
exchange
much
more
specific
to
money.
Of
course
there
can
still
be
lots
of
things
used
as
a
medium
of
exchange,
giving
rise
to
a
notion
of
“moneyness”
based
on
the
general
willingness
of
people
to
accept
a
thing
for
settlement.
So
when
we’re
talking
about
money,
the
things
that
really
make
it
money
are
its
use
for
exchanging
and
accounting
for
value.
However,
when
crypto
people
talk
about
money,
for
some
reason
they
only
seem
to
care
about
being
a
store
of
value
—
a
la
bitcoin’s
branding
as
“digital
gold.”
Ultra-sound
deflationary
assets
and
all
that
nonsense.
At
least
be
honest
with
yourselves:
You’re
not
talking
about
money,
you’re
talking
about
capital
assets.
In
some
cases
you
invoke
a
discounted
cash
flow
stream.
In
some
cases
you
invoke
the
scarcity
or
preciousness
of
cryptographic
digital
assets.
In
some
cases
both.
But
you’re
usually
not
talking
about
money
as
money
is
actually
used.
To
be
honest,
I’m
not
sure
any
of
us
really
know
what
money
is
in
the
21st
century.
In
crypto,
the
definition
of
money
has
been
polluted
by
people
hyper
fixating
on
store
of
value
assets,
which
is
selling
our
collective
future
short.
Money
is
about
accounting
and
exchange,
not
just
storing
value.
See
also:
Money
Crypto
Versus
Tech
Crypto
|
Opinion
You
could
argue
all
day
about
whether
ETH
(ETH)
or
SOL
(SOL)
or
ATOM
(ATOM)
is
a
better
store
of
value
without
me
sneering
about
money
(though
I
might
sneer
about
other
things).
But
if
you
really
want
to
talk
about
money,
you
need
to
talk
about
how
crypto
can
be
used
as
a
unit
of
account
and
medium
of
exchange
—
like
how
the
original
idea
for
bitcoin
was
as
“peer-to-peer
digital
currency.”
A
unit
of
account
is
something
you
denominate
debts
in
(this
includes
what
we
call
“prices”).
A
medium
of
exchange
is
something
you
use
to
settle
debts
when
they’re
due.
You
can
read
more
about
these
definitions
for
the
functions
of
money
here.
It
should
be
pretty
clear
to
everyone
that
our
crypto
assets
are
hardly
at
all
used
for
these
purposes.
Is
that
really
true?
Well,
not
exactly.
Spending
money
The
one
place
crypto
is
certainly
used,
and
where
we
could
certainly
consider
tokens
money,
is
in
the
context
of
their
own
block
space.
ETH
blockspace
is
priced
and
settled
in
ETH,
so
ETH
is
money
in
the
context
of
the
economy
centered
around
its
own
blockspace.
This
is
true
for
nearly
every
layer
1.
In
this
sense,
Chris
Burniske
was
right
that
SOL
is
as
much
money
as
ETH.
You
could
also
argue
that
ETH
(or
SOL
or
ATOM
or
any
token)
is
used
as
a
medium
of
exchange
or
unit
of
account
in
certain
other
crypto
focused
circuits,
including
base
pairs
on
exchange
or
to
buy
NFTs.
To
the
extent
certain
things
are
priced
directly
in
ETH
or
SOL
or
ATOM,
or
to
the
extent
debts
are
denominated
in
those
units,
then
they
are
acting
as
a
unit
of
account.
To
the
extent
payments
are
settled
using
those
tokens,
they
are
operating
as
a
means
of
exchange.
One
challenge
is
it
doesn’t
make
good
sense
to
use
volatile
assets
as
a
unit
of
account.
Even
gas
prices
seem
to
adjust
more
to
an
inherent
accounting
in
dollars
than
in
native
tokens.
However
it
does
seem
that
certain
NFTs
have
been
priced
more
in
their
native
token
than
in
dollars.
There
is
also
the
case
of
protocol
owned
liquidity,
where
debts
are
denominated
in
a
native
token,
like
how
ATOM
lent
by
Cosmos
Hub
to
Osmosis
and
to
Neutron
is
debt
denominated
in
ATOM.
The
liquid
staking
revolution
is
relevant
here
as
well,
in
that
these
native
tokens
being
locked
up
as
value
storing
capital
assets
can
also
be
used
as
a
medium
of
exchange
(to
the
extent
people
want
to
settle
their
debts
in
liquid
staked
assets).
All
this
to
say,
arguing
over
which
is
the
better
money
right
now
isn’t
helpful
since
hardly
anyone
is
really
using
tokens
as
money.
Unless
you’re
pricing
or
settling
a
meaningful
fraction
of
your
payments
in
crypto,
in
which
case
you
have
all
my
respect.
Rather
than
arguing,
I’d
encourage
the
whole
industry
to
read
more
deeply
on
the
subject.
And
no,
I
don’t
just
mean
Graeber’s
“Debt”
and
Fergusson’s
“Ascent
of
Money.”
The
most
important
book
for
understanding
the
monetary
context
of
cryptocurrencies
is
the
“Private
Money
and
Public
Currencies,
the
16th
Century
Challenge.”
The
book
outlines
the
context
for
the
rise
of
central
banks,
and
hence
the
motivation
for
crypto.
I
also
recommend
a
five
book
crash
course
on
the
history
of
money,
some
of
which
covers
an
important
focus
that
is
absent
from
too
much
of
the
discourse
on
money:
the
payment
graph.
The
essential
thing
in
building
a
stable
and
sustainable
money
is
to
balance
the
payments
graph,
the
ledger
of
account
that
shows
who
owes
money
to
whom.
This
is
a
key
insight
behind
Cycles,
a
new
project
which
is
reimagining
payments
and
credit.
A
cosmos
of
money
It’s
worth
noting
that
Cosmos
has
far
and
away
the
most
advanced
understanding
of
all
this,
both
implicitly
and
explicitly.
Jae
Kwon
and
I,
the
two
co-founders
of
Cosmos,
have
always
insisted
that
ATOM
is
not
money.
More
recently
I’ve
taken
to
calling
it
Interchain
Capital.
The
Cosmos
philosophy
of
sovereign
interoperability
is
fundamentally
a
monetary
philosophy,
but
one
that
recognizes
inherently
that
we
don’t
really
know
what
money
is
in
the
21st
century
and
we’re
going
to
need
to
experiment
to
figure
it
out.
Cosmos
remains
the
leading
place
for
that
experimentation,
and
the
Cosmos
Hub
blockchain
is
itself
an
anchor
for
it.
See
also:
Cosmos
Founder
Calls
for
Chain
Split
By
refusing
to
fall
prey
to
the
“ultra-sound
money”
memetics,
and
by
focusing
on
fostering
a
larger
culture
of
innovation
through
sovereign
interoperability,
ATOM
and
the
Cosmos
Hub
become
homes
for
a
new
kind
of
experimentation
in
what
money
is.
Of
all
the
“monies”
in
the
crypto
space,
ATOM
is
the
one
with
the
most
decentralized
governance
over
what
it
means.
While
ETH
fixates
on
deflation
and
SOL
on
cheap
global
compute,
ATOM
fixates
on
the
political
problems
at
the
heart
of
money
itself.
This
is
part
of
what
makes
ATOM
so
much
more
complicated
and
hated.
But
therein
lies
its
uniqueness.
Not
to
mention
ATOM
secures
one
of
the
leading
liquid
staking
venues
and
is
poised
to
become
a
leading
place
to
launch
new
chains
and
access
interchain
capital
with
the
upcoming
Atom
Wars
and
Partial
Set
Security.
For
my
part,
my
studies
in
monetary
theory
and
history
these
last
few
years
have
made
the
next
thing
we
need
to
build
to
figure
out
money
in
the
21st
century
pretty
obvious:
Cycles.
CoinDesk
got
a
sneak
peak
at
the
precursor
to
Cycles
at
Consensus
last
year.
The
Cycles
white
paper
is
coming
soon
—
stay
tuned.
